Light Up America 2014

[Matthew Bartels]

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VATUSA is excited to announce the return of Light Up America on Saturday May 17, 2014. This event will feature all 22 ARTCCs within VATUSA for 10 hours. 4 hours of which the entire continental USA will be lit up with Air Traffic Control at the Centers as well as Major Approach and Tower facilities. Enjoy uninterrupted ATC during the event. Simply fly between any airports as much you would like and enjoy the quality ATC Services that VATUSA facilities pride themselves on.

Every facility will be on for at least a 6 hour time frame with the East Coast facilities starting up at 12:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time. As the event progresses, the additional centers will log on at noon in their local time zone. By 3:00 PM all the centers will be online for you. As the event winds down, facilities will be encouraged to remain online, but must remain online until at least 6:00 PM local time. As they begin to close down, we will extend the event even further west with the Anchorage, Honolulu, and Oakland Oceanic control facilities coming online to work your Hawaii and Alaska flights! It will be a great day of flying for you.

Pilot Briefing can be found at the following link: Light Up America Final Rules

[Jason Boche]

Question on the rules of the contest so I'm clear and there's a level playing field for all pilots:

Can a pilot complete a leg within the first few minutes of ATC being available on the east coast giving them a clear advantage?  

Example: If one could time the first flight such that takeoff from a given airport starts before the event and landing occurs let's say 5 minutes after the event starts. The event documentation talks about flying from one ARTCC to another and landing within the parameters of the event time but it doesn't mention valid takeoff times.

Question 2: Do contest legs need to be "connected"?  The contest documentation shows each leg being connected.

Question 3: Some ARTCCs appear to have a higher point value in the lower score column, for instance ZLA and ZJX. Is this correct?

I'll also make the assumption that time compression in the simulator will not be allowed for any pilot and simulator crash recovery will be allowed for FSX users.

Thank you,
Jas

[Matthew Bartels]

Any landing within the event window will qualify for points.
Legs do not have to be connected
Point values are assigned based on traffic values. So ZJX should have more points than ZLA because their featured airports see less traffic.
Any Flight which is time accelerated is ineligible for points on that leg.
Crash recovery will be allowed within reason provided the pilot respawns near where he disconnected.

Question on the rules of the contest so I'm clear and there's a level playing field for all pilots:

Can a pilot complete a leg within the first few minutes of ATC being available on the east coast giving them a clear advantage?  

Example: If one could time the first flight such that takeoff from a given airport starts before the event and landing occurs let's say 5 minutes after the event starts. The event documentation talks about flying from one ARTCC to another and landing within the parameters of the event time but it doesn't mention valid takeoff times.

Question 2: Do contest legs need to be "connected"?  The contest documentation shows each leg being connected.

Question 3: Some ARTCCs appear to have a higher point value in the lower score column, for instance ZLA and ZJX. Is this correct?

I'll also make the assumption that time compression in the simulator will not be allowed for any pilot and simulator crash recovery will be allowed for FSX users.

Thank you,
Jas

[Bradley Grafelman]

So ZJX should have more points than ZLA because their featured airports see less traffic.

I think he was referring to the fact that within those ARTCCs, their "high score" airport has a lower score than their "low score" airport.

Just seems odd... and potentially embarrassing as if someone forgot how the number line works.

[Matthew Bartels]

I think he was referring to the fact that within those ARTCCs, their "high score" airport has a lower score than their "low score" airport.

Just seems odd... and potentially embarrassing as if someone forgot how the number line works.

Ah. I can go fix that. The airports were submitted by the ARTCCs themselves in such a format and points were assigned based on that form. So if they put the higher trafficked airport as the high score it was instead at assigned the lower point value due to traffic. The higher traffic volume airports don't need as much incentive to visit.

[Jason Boche]

What happened to the pilot briefing?  The dropbox link no longer works.

[Matthew Bartels]

What happened to the pilot briefing?  The dropbox link no longer works.

Its working fine here.

[Matthew Bartels]

Its working fine here.

The Final Rules have been posted in the original post. See you tomorrow

[Don Desfosse]

CONGRATULATIONS!  THE USA IS ALL LIT UP!

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[Aidan Sandri]

CONGRATULATIONS!  THE USA IS ALL LIT UP!

[img]http://www.vatusa.net/events/images/LUA14%20All%20Lit%20Up%202.PNG\\\" border=\\\"0\\\" class=\\\"linked-image\\\" /]

Looks good, however would have been nice to have Oakland & Vancouver, 'to connect the dots.'

[Jason Boche]

I also would have thought Toronto and the rest of Canada might have wanted to get in the act.  When looking at the map it almost looks like a Canadian boycott. I don't mean that literally and I'm sure they were busy or something.  Canadian ATC is among the best I've experienced.  

[Don Desfosse]

All, a great event from all the feedback received.  Thank you all for coming out and participating.  ARTCC staff, please pass on these thanks (and a link to the forum here, http://forum.vatusa.net/index.php?showtopi...mp;#entry21673) to all of your members just in case any of your members don't actively monitor the USA forums.    

Here is one of the more poignant feedback submissions we received:

[!--quoteo--][div class=\\\'quotetop\\\']QUOTE [/div][div class=\\\'quotemain\\\'][!--quotec--]Please pass on my thanks and appreciation for all the controllers and other volunteers who made Light Up America a resounding success at least for me.  I am a medically grounded private pilot who now has only his PC to fly, and I was thrilled when I discovered Vatsim.  The network makes my flying so much more realistic.  My only disappointment is not being able to regularly plan and complete a flight in time to have ATC start to finish.  This event was just what I've been waiting for and it really lived up to my imagination.  I planned a BOS-CVG-DFW-SLC schedule and made it to DFW before my wife made me quit.  Controllers along the route were excellent and I look forward to next time.  Please keep up the great work...I hope your controllers enjoy it as much as I do.[/quote]

As Matt Bartels, USA5, aptly pointed out, this makes all the stress and effort involved with planning and deploying this event worth it!

Thank you all, for all that you do to make VATUSA successful.  My dream is that someday VATUSA will be staffed like this during the day every weekend!  How awesome would that be!  

[Fred Michaels]

My dream is that someday VATUSA will be staffed like this during the day every weekend!  How awesome would that be!  

We would great a raise, right?

[Kenneth Bambach]

No, but you would get free dental.....

[Chris La Salle]

So, who won the event? Can't find a posting.